In the early years of the 21st Century gvnet.com/humantrafficking/CoteD’Ivoire.htm

Republic of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

Côte d’Ivoire
is the world's largest producer and exporter of cocoa beans and a significant
producer and exporter of coffee and palm oil.

Despite
government attempts to diversify the economy, it is still heavily dependent
on agriculture and related activities, engaging roughly 68% of the
population. Since 2006, oil and gas production have become more important
engines of economic activity than cocoa.

Since
the end of the civil war in 2003, political turmoil has continued to damage
the economy, resulting in the loss of foreign investment and slow economic
growth. GDP grew by nearly 2% in 2007 and 3% in 2008. Per capita income has
declined by 15% since 1999.[The
World Factbook, U.S.C.I.A. 2009]

Côte
d’Ivoire is a source, transit, and
destination country for women and children trafficked for forced labor and
commercial sexual exploitation. Trafficking within the country is more
prevalent than transnational trafficking, and the majority of victims are
children. Within Côte
d’Ivoire, women and girls are trafficked
primarily for domestic servitude, restaurant labor, and sexual exploitation.
A 2007 study by the German government’s foreign aid organization found that 85
percent of females in prostitution in two Ivoirian districts were children.
Boys are trafficked within the country for agricultural and service
labor.- U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009[full country
report]

CAUTION:The following
links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Côte d’Ivoire.Some of these links may lead to websites that
present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false.No attempt has been made to verify their
authenticity or to validate their content.

At five in the
morning, well before most children get up to go to school, 12-year-old Abula sets out on a six-kilometre
barefoot trek along a road made of mud and stone to work on a coffee
plantation in Bouafle, Côte d’Ivoire.

When he gets there,
wet and tired, the foreman tells him where he is to plant that day. “You have
to work fast because they threaten to punish and starve us if we don’t do the
set amount of work,” he says. “If we can’t work because we’re ill, we risk
being physically tortured. One day I saw them torture two friends of mine who
wanted to escape. Both of them ended up dead.”

Outside the village of Sinikosson in southwestern Ivory Coast,
along a trail tracing the edge of a muddy fishpond, MadiOuedraogo sits on the ground picking up cocoa pods
in one hand, hacking them open with a machete in the other and scooping the
filmy white beans into plastic buckets. It is the middle of the school day,
but Madi, who looks to be about 10, says his family
can't afford the fees to send him to the nearest school, five miles away.
"I don't like this work," he says. "I would rather do
something else. But I have to do this."

This type of child
labor isn't supposed to exist in Ivory Coast. Not only is it explicitly
barred by law - the official working age in the country is 18 - but since the
issue first became public seven years ago, there has been an international
campaign by the chocolate industry, governments and human rights
organizations to eradicate the problem. Yet today child workers, many under
the age of 10, are everywhere.

Nearly half the
world's cocoa is harvested in the Cote D'Ivoire. As it is a hidden
trade, exact figures are hard to come by. In 2000 the US State Department
Human Rights report found that more than 15,000 Malian children were
trafficked into this area to work as slaves both on coffee and cocoa
plantations, the majority being cocoa.

"Chocolate
manufacturers promised to end the use of trafficked children in harvesting
the cocoa beans that make our chocolate by 2005," explained a
spokesperson from Stop The Traffik, "but this
has not been done. They have started several worthy initiatives but are not
addressing the central issue of trafficked labour.

At five in the
morning, well before most children get up to go to school, 12-year-old Abula sets out on a six-kilometre
barefoot trek along a road made of mud and stone to work on a coffee
plantation in Bouafle, Côte d’Ivoire.

When he gets there,
wet and tired, the foreman tells him where he is to plant that day. “You have
to work fast because they threaten to punish and starve us if we don’t do the
set amount of work,” he says. “If we can’t work because we’re ill, we risk
being physically tortured. One day I saw them torture two friends of mine who
wanted to escape. Both of them ended up dead.”

[page 47 picture
caption]Eleven of the reported 108 children who
were, two years earlier, brought into Côte d’Ivoire to work on their
Marabou’s plantation. The children receive food and housing. Their only form
of education is memorizing the Koran at night. They have not received any
form of wage payment for the two years since arriving in Côte d’Ivoire.
The children work harvesting cocoa, coffee, corn, rice, cassavas and mangos.
They said they were promised an education and would be taught a job skill.
Some expressed that they would like to return home, but have no money, no
idea how to get home, or where they are. The oldest is 17 and the youngest is
currently 9 years old.

Statistics from the
United Nationa’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicated
that human trafficking was rated the World’s third most profitable illicit
business venture apart from drugs and prostitution. Subsequently, the
number of children trafficked from Afram Plains in
the Eastern, Yeji in the BrongAhafo, and Atitekpo in
the Volta Regions countries such as The Gambia and Côte d’Ivoire in
particular, for hazardous occupation had increased.

Statistics from the
United Nationa’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicated
that human trafficking was rated the World’s third most profitable illicit
business venture apart from drugs and prostitution.Subsequently, the number of children
trafficked from Afram Plains in the Eastern, Yeji in the BrongAhafo, and Atitekpo in the
Volta Regions countries such as The Gambia and Côte d’Ivoire
in particular, for hazardous occupation had increased.

The Protection Project - Côte d’Ivoire[DOC]

The PaulH.NitzeSchool
of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), The JohnsHopkinsUniversity

FORMS OF TRAFFICKING
-
Children have been trafficked to Côte d’Ivoire for forced
agricultural work. Thousands of Malian children may be working on Ivorian
farms. In September 2002, for example, an Ivorian national was arrested in
the Sikasso area of Mali.
Accompanying him were three children, whom he was allegedly attempting to
bring into Côte d’Ivoire.Child agricultural workers are exposed to
dangerous pesticides and other hazards.Furthermore, it is suspected that there is a high number of
prostituted children in Côte
d’Ivoire, including young Nigerian
trafficking victims.

Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 6Civil Liberties: 5Status: Not Free

Forty-three percent
of the cocoa used in chocolate comes from Ivory Coast, which makes this
African country the biggest producer of cocoa worldwide. Most of the laborers
on cocoa plantations are between twelve and sixteen years old, some of them
are even younger, nine years old. These young children are treated like
slaves – they don’t receive any payment for their labor, and are beaten with
sticks when they don’t work, or try to escape. They are locked up at night,
don’t get sufficient nutrition and work eighty to one hundred hours per week.
The children are separated from their families, since they are ‘purchased’
from their families in adjacent countries like Mali,
Burkina Faso and Togo, and
they live in constant fear on the cocoa plantations. Although it is not known
how many children are enslaved in Ivory Coast, it is estimated that
approximately fifteen thousand child slaves work on cocoa, cotton and coffee
farms in this African country.

At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 4 September 2011]

The study describes
trafficking as a dynamic phenomenon that can change from day to day depending
on the changing circumstances of a country. Mr. Rossi says that for example,
before the civil uprising in Ivory
Coast, it was a major receiving country.
But since the crisis, more people are being trafficked out of Ivory Coast
to countries where they often are used as slave labor or for sexual purposes.

Drissa's Story and the
Origins of Slavery in Cocoa

2003

dillpill.deviantart.com/journal/1110784/

[accessed 30 January 2011]

DRISSA'S STORY - Once in Korhogo, in the Ivory Coast, Drissa
was offered what sounded like a good job on a cocoa plantation, but when he
reached the isolated farm, he was enslaved. More than 300 miles from home,
far from any settlement, not even knowing where he was, Drissa
was trapped. When he tried to run away he was savagely beaten. At night,
along with 17 other young men, Drissa was locked
into a small room, with only a tin can as a toilet.

On the plantation
the work is hard. In oppressive heat, with biting flies around their heads
and snakes in the undergrowth, the slaves worked from dawn till dusk tending
and collecting the cocoa pods. Often given only braised banana to eat for
months at a time, they developed vitamin deficiencies. Weak from hunger they
staggered under great sacks of cocoa pods. If they slowed in their work, they
were beaten.

Drissa is a child but
does not care for chocolate so much. He still carries the marks of his time
harvesting the cocoa beans from vast plantations of cacao trees in the Ivory Coast.Numerous wounds from beatings adorn his
back. Some are down to the bone. Drissa was a
"chocolate slave", one of an unknown number of children from West
Africa sold by their families into bondage in the Ivory Coast, the world's largest
producer of cocoa.They are paid
nothing, beaten into submission and abandoned when illness makes them
useless.

A labor-rights
group is threatening legal action to require the U.S.
government to consider banning cocoa imports from Ivory Coast, alleging that forced
child labor is employed extensively in production.

"Child slaves
are used on cocoa plantations all over (Ivory Coast) without any
observable programs to stop the practice," Aristide said. After talking
with cocoa farmers to get an idea of their demand for labor and what type
they expect to employ, he said he found that farmers are pressed to cut labor
costs to maintain income as cocoa prices have plummeted. Aristide suggested
that one simple solution could be for the large multinational cocoa
processors to offer to pay more for cocoa beans produced on farms certified
free of indentured child labor.

Aly Diabate, from the country of Mali,
was 12 years old when a slave trader promised him $150 and a bicycle for
working on a cacao farm in Ivory
Coast, where 43 percent of the world's
cacao is grown. Instead, Aly was sold for about $35 to a cacao farmer, who
regularly beat the boy with a bicycle chain and branches from a cacao tree.
"The beatings were part of my life," Aly told a reporter for Knight
Ridder Newspapers in 2001, after he was freed by
local authorities and returned to his Mali village.

Mali's modern-day slave
traders do not bother with abductions any more. They lure victims with a
smile. "Hey there," a stranger called, leaning out the window of a
dented white mini-van as it chugged to a stop on a dirt road. Two teenage
brothers looked up at the driver. He introduced himself as Solo. "You
looking for work?Years later, Moumouni and SeydouSylla recall how eagerly they jumped.
"Yes!"And, with that, one
of Mali's
most notorious child traffickers had laid his trap.

Moumouni, 14 at the time,
and his 16-year-old brother had left the village with dreams of paid
employment and possessions their impoverished parents could not provide: a
bike and a pair of American jeans."Then, come on," Solo beckoned. "I'll take you to
someone who will give you a job. You won't even have to pay for
transportation."The next day,
the Sylla brothers found themselves captive in a
windowless hut -- caught in the web of smugglers who coax unknown numbers of
young people out of impoverished Mali
each year and sell them into hard labor in the prosperous country next door, Ivory Coast.
The Sylla brothers sold for the price of a pair of
shoes -- $63 apiece.The years that
followed are a blur of backbreaking labor, vicious beatings, food deprivation
and dark nights in captivity.

Traffickers target boys in cocoa trade - Enslavement nearly hidden as children taken to work on Ivory Coast
farms

At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 4 September 2011]

Businessmen called
"locateurs" wait in the little bus
station in this large border town, where crammed mini-buses leave for Ivory Coast
every 30 minutes. They search the crowds for children traveling alone,
looking lost or begging for food."Would you like a great job in Cote d'Ivoire?" they ask,
using the official name of the former French colony. "I can find you
one."

The dusty alley behind
the bus station is brimming with vendors selling everything from food to
cigarettes. There are cobblers and shanty kiosks selling bootleg tapes of
West African pop music. Chickens and goats abound, and dust mingles with the
scent of raw meat.There also is a
dark warehouse with blackened walls and a thick wooden door covered with tin
sheeting that locks from the outside. Malian officials say slave traders
sometimes keep their young victims here overnight so they can't escape.

At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 4 September 2011]

Mali and Slavery. There are an
estimated 15,000 Malian youth ages 15 to 18 who are enslaved in the Ivory
Coast, lured by smugglers who promise the youth and their parents high wages
and training. Instead, most do manual labor in cocoa plantations.

According to the
ILO, the best defense against the sale of children is to have local NGOs
educate villagers about what really happens to their children, and to step up
enforcement of laws that make recruiting and enslaving children a crime.

SCANDAL OF BRITAIN'S CHILD SLAVES REVEALED - Investigators
also discovered a trade in girls who can be bought for £ 5 a time at a market
in Abidjan.
Documents can be quickly acquired through corruption - after a few minutes
outside the Ministry of the Child, Welfare and the Family, a tout approached
an African producer posing as a hopeful parent - $ 500 and less than 12 hours
was all he needed for the paperwork to be in order, and for the stranger to
become, officially, his daughter.

Child Labour
Persists Around The World: More Than 13 Percent Of Children 10-14 Are
Employed

The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor

U.S.Dept
of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2005

www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/cote-d'ivoire.htm

[accessed 30 January 2011]

INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - National armed forces and rebel groups are reported
to recruit or use children in situations of armed conflict, sometimes on a
forced basis.Rebel forces are also
reported to actively recruit child soldiers from refugee camps and other
areas in the western part of the country.Côte d’Ivoire
is a source and destination country for trafficked children.Children are trafficked into the country
from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana,
Mali,
Mauritania and Togo to work
as domestic servants, farm laborers, and indentured servants, and for sexual
exploitation. There are also reports of Malian boys working on farms
and plantations in Côte
d’Ivoire under conditions of indentured
servitude. Children have been trafficked out of Côte d’Ivoire to other countries in Africa as
well as to Europe and the Middle East.
Children are also trafficked from all parts of the country into Abidjan and other areas
in the south for domestic service

Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

U.S.Dept
of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 8, 2006

TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– The country was a source and destination country for trafficking in women
and children from Mali,
Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo,
and Benin
for the purpose of forced commercial agriculture and domestic servitude. The
full extent and nature of the problem was unknown despite efforts to document
and trafficking of persons in the country. There was no reliable estimate of
the number of children intercepted or repatriated during the year.
Trafficking in persons decreased during the year due to increased checkpoints
and fewer economic opportunities in the country. However, officials at the country's
border with Ghana
near Aboisso turned back more busloads of children
traveling without adults than in the previous year.

The country's
cities and farms provided ample opportunities for traffickers, especially of
children and women. The informal labor sectors were not regulated under
existing labor laws, so domestics, most non-industrial farm laborers, and
those who worked in the country's wide network of street shops and
restaurants remained outside government protection. Internal trafficking of girls
ages 9 to 15 to work as household domestics in Abidjan, and elsewhere in the more
prosperous south, remained a problem. Traffickers of local children were
often relatives or friends of the victim's parents. Traffickers sometimes
promised parents that the children would learn a trade, but they often ended
up on the streets as vendors or working as domestic servants. Due to the
economic crisis, many parents allowed their children to be exploited.

Concluding Observations of the Committee on
the Rights of the Child (CRC)

[55] While noting
the efforts undertaken by the State party within its Plan of Action to fight
child trafficking, the Committee remains deeply concerned at the large number
of child victims of trafficking for the purpose of exploitation in the State
party's agricultural, mining and domestic service sectors and other forms of
exploitation.

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